It’s difficult to describe the emotions you encounter before, during and after a momentous game and it’s even more difficult to attach any kind of sense or proportionality to any that manifest. Blackpool fans would have experienced a wide range during their play off final victory, from being 1-0 and 2-1 down, being 3-2 up at half time, seeing an opponent’s goal disallowed and the Milan-esque ekeing-out of time by their superstars in the final 10 minutes.

As a hopeful but otherwise neutral spectator at Wembley on Saturday, I was caught up in the tension of the game but was able to crowd-watch as a relatively dispassionate by-stander and it was one of the most surreal atmospheres I’ve ever encountered, particularly at full time.

The unbridled joy at the final result was an obvious release from a game that the fans knew they could win and was the fairly routine outpouring that any set of fans manage after a positive result in a fairly big game. But what swiftly followed was a kind of serene bafflement about the wider implications of victory in this specific game.

Usually, you’ll find the unbridled joy of [insert team name of regular trophy winner] fans is displayed with many, repeated songs long into the night, much drinking, jumping up and down and general exuberant celebration. There was little of this on show directly after the match, on the tube back in to town or even out-and-about in the capital. The coaches heading north may well have been a different matter but the expression on the faces of Blackpool fans still in London at least a good few hours after the final whistle was that of joyful bafflement.

As good an example of this was the image I caught of good friend of and contributor to therealfacup, Taylor, at the final whistle. Rictus grin and thousand yard stare rolled in to one and all because of the result of a football match. But why? It is perhaps that 39 years absence of top flight football made it something they didn’t often seriously think about. Mavbe it’s that, although being on the edge of the play offs all season, they only sneaked in with a couple of games to go, so it had somewhat caught them by surprise. Maybe it’s that they didn’t seriously expect to batter Forest at their own gaff in the semi. Maybe it is just too ridiculous an idea for even hardcore ‘Pool fans to contemplate.

My recollection of Ipswich’s Play Off Final victory is one of joy but we were clear favourites, we’d been in the top flight a number of times in my lifetime and I felt we deserved it. It is almost as if 30,000 Blackpool fans had opened their wardrobe door and stumbled upon a strange world in which they get to fight against red devils, big scary cockerels, villains, wealthy pensioners and some impoverished children with a big gun and a nice new house. Whether their chaps come to vanquish these new, other-worldly foes is almost irrelevant at this point. When the fixture list comes out, however, it remains to be seen whether those muted celebrations turn to cheers or groans.

Of course, it may just be a hitherto hidden, old fashioned sense of Englishness that has been retained in a little corner of the North West but, having seen the celebrations after the second leg of the semi final, I know that is bollocks and I’m not goin gto go down the patronising route that hundreds of others will.

Damon.

THE FA Vase final was perhaps always going to be the most likely source of season finale for therealfacup. The FA Cup final was always likely to be an unappealingly corporate whore-athon and the experience of our chum Rich at runcorn2wembley illustrates that perfectly.

This was therealfacup’s first trip to Wembley. Well, it was mine, Matt had been before to see Exeter in the Conference play off final and to see Oasis (!?) and Andy had been to see Blackpool in the League One play off final.

Pre-match was set fair and off to the Green Man in Wembley to join the throng. If there was any indecision about who we should be rooting for in this game, it was swiftly and sharply brought into focus by a ‘Wroxham fan’ wearing a Norwich City shirt. Why? This is Wroxham’s day, who cares if you are a Norwich fan you selfish aunt.

It was pretty quiet but jovial at the Green Man with the Whitley fans, there were some big lads having occasional sing songs but, generally, there were loads of kids around and it was all rather pleasant. And then the sun came out and it shone brightly off the not inconsiderable midriff of a Bay ‘fan’ wearing THAT Newcastle shirt. We nearly dropped our earlier objections to the Norwich one but it takes a special breed of man to wear that ‘Solero’ away kit, so we let it go.

Throughout the 3 pints we were there, the sun got warmer and the volume gradually increased but it dissipated from about 2:15 as people drifted off to the ground a bit early.

My other half, a Whitley native, had decided that planting seeds and shopping took preference over watching her kinsmen grace the hallowed turf of Wembley. As Wroxham had reportedly only sold 2500 tickets, it looked as though this absenteeism was unlikely to mean The Bay were outnumbered. That was the case, they had well over 5000 in a sub-par crowd of less than 9000.

Given the current strength of the Northern non-leagues, we were predicting a comfortable win for Bay against a side not used to this stage of the competition. After just 23 seconds, man of the match Paul Chow nipped in between the Yachtsmen’s ‘keeper and a defender, both clearly frozen in Wembley’s headlights, to score the quickest goal in Vase final history – and possibly the quickest at the new Wembley.

The early goal didn’t faze Wroxham and, with equal fortune, they found themselves level after Bay failed to clear a cross. But another defensive error was only minutes away as Wroxham’s Eastaugh turned a Hodgson cross beautifully past his own keeper and into the bottom corner. It was a great finish, wrong end.

 The rest of the half produced no goals and although Wroxham were second best they weren’t out of it. They were however favouring the outlet of Lemmon on their right flank but he was well marshalled and had little support. Wroxham were trying to play the right way but their insistence on short passes was proving restrictive because they were closed down effectively by every Bay player. Whitley were doing the same but their players had the vision and ability to punctuate their short play by occasionally executing accurate longer crossfield and forward passes that stretched Wroxham’s back line.

Having been burgled of £25 for a ticket and £4 for a thin but glossy programme before the game I decided not to eat, choosing to leave myself open for embitterment at Wembley’s well known refreshments racket. A £4 slice of ‘stone baked’ (my arse) pizza looked to fit the bill but proved disappointingly appetizing. Herby, cheesy, tomoatoey goodness. Damn you Wembley. Andy’s £4 vegetable pie proved more satisfactory in the disappointment stakes. It smelled vaguely of curry but was three inches in diameter, the colour of David Dickinson and had some different coloured pieces in it that were, we assumed, supposed to be the veg. Grim.

Such was the pizza/pie intrigue, not to mention the food queue, we missed Whitley’s 3rd goal. Mind you, so did the vast majority of Whitley fans who went scurrying for the tunnels as a muted cheer filtered through from the stadium. I got there just in time to see the ball bounce gently over the line on the big screen replay. Bugger.

The dozen or so ten year olds behind us who’d been singing “You only sing when you’re winning’ for much of the first half, despite being told to sit down several times by a jobsworth steward, went berserk and then started to open up their repertoire. I’m not yet fluent in Geordie so I’m paraphrasing with this translation but my favourite went something like “I told me mam not to fetch us some tea, coz I’m off to watch Whitley at Wemberley“. It’s not often you get such well behaved young lads going mental for the WHOLE 90 minutes in a barely supervised group so it was quite refreshing in an almost empty national stadium to get a decent atmosphere.

The game was effectively over. Whitely were the better side anyway but with Wroxham needing to attack they were getting picked off every few minutes and Bay added a 4th, 5th and 6th which could easily have been extended to a 7th, 8th and 9th. It was a bit of a shame for the Yachtsmen’s adventure to end with such a walloping but, by all accounts, Wroxham’s best players simply didn’t turn up, so a tricky tie was simply made impossible.

You could perhaps assume such a low crowd would have us suggesting a smaller, alternate venue might be more appropriate for such a lowly final but, no, we stand by our comments in the preview. This is exactly appropriate for all the reasons we suggested and when the scorers names flashed up on the scoreboard, the replays were shown on the screen and when the players took the walk up the steps to collect the trophy, I couldn’t help but have a pang of non-begrudging covetousness for what even the vanquished players had experienced.

One thing about the attendance, though. Even the latter stages of this competition saw ticket prices of around £6/8, why was it £25 for the final? The question is answered, presumably, by the cost of Wembley Stadium but, even so, this crowd would have been much bigger if it was £15, which seems more in line with sense. The FA are to be praised for having the foresight to play Vase and Trophy finals at Wembley but they are somewhat short-sighted with the pricing and you have to ask whether they should pay more attention to the clubs when it comes to finals and not ride roughshod over an otherwise worthy competition.

Commiserations to Wroxham, congratulations to Whitley and SHAME on you jobsworth steward for getting ten year old boys to sit down on the back row of a sparsely populated stand. Good game.

Wroxham 1 Whitley Bay 6
Man Of The Match – Paul Chow (Whitley Bay)
Cheers to Andy Taylor, as ever, for some of the photos.

People criticise the FA for many things, oh yes, but what other country’s football association continues to support a cup competition for meagrely supported, ‘amateur’ teams that culminates in an appearance at the national stadium?

Actually, the law of averages suggests others surely must do but, still, when you think about it, it’s bloody good form, what! As a [insert cliched noble profession here], how much of a life highlight would it be to sit in the England dressing room, coveting the seat on which Goldenballs’ golden balls have perched, hanging your hoody on the peg that supported the full weight of Rio’s wardrobe or looking in the mirrors in which David James fixed his ‘fro? Fucking massive, number 1 highlight, that’s how much.

Two such teams of part time footballers will do just those things on Sunday week. And several thousand Whitley fans will return to Wembley having already pondered this last year after watching The Bay defeat Glossop North End 2-0. Their return this year is against more Easterly but, pyramid-wise, equal opposition and this is an odd final as I have at least a passing affection for both sides. therealfacup tries, and often fails, to be impartial but this one is going to be trickier.

Whitley Bay is what some might unfairly call a ‘traditional English seaside town’. It had it’s heyday back when other resorts did, when the Spanish City was in full force, but it’s not one of the many places that have become a shell. The lighthouse is cool, the chippies are good, the bars are, well, Geordie and the beach is excellent, if bloody freezing. I’m fairly new to it but thanks to my other half and her friends I’ve sampled its delights. And I like it.

We were going to check out a Bay home game at Hillheads on Boxing Day but the fierce weather that blighted blighty this winter got there first and dusted the pitch with frozen water molecules. No game. We did see them in the QF against Chertsey when they were hampered by a harsh sending off but they were clearly a decent side.

Wroxham, on the other hand, are a team very much from my past. It certainly used to be a fairly well kept small town with a decent bit of water running through it and an out of town shopping experience ahead of its time. No idea what it’s like now, mind? I used to cycle there when I were a lad, for something to do when not playing with disused farm machinery. I saw them play a few times back in the 90s when living in Norwich and have a vague, unconfirmed, recollection of playing there.

Though fun memories of visits to random grounds add a fondness, Wroxham are, of course, a Norfolk team and my newly found impartiality is hampered slightly by my Suffolk affiliation. But they aren’t Norwich, so move on, boy.

Wroxham are in the Ridgeons Eastern Counties Premier League, at the same level in the pyramid as Whitley, but are currently treading water in mid-table. Having never got this far in the Vase before, they are almost certainly underdogs. Two early Wroxham goals in the semi final 2nd leg effectively ended the tie in front of a record Trafford Park crowd of 1,262. The two goals killed it because they’d already despatched a Whitehawk side, champions-elect of the Sussex Counties league, at the same level of the pyramid, 2-0 in the first leg.

Whitley had an arguably trickier tie against a team who have this season achieved 101pts from a possible 111. Bay left it very late to nail their place with a 6-5 (agg), injury time-inspired win over Barwell. The Bay have, however, finished 3rd in the Northern League and it could have been better had they won their games in hand.

In a slightly disappointing twist, even though they’ve got to Wembley, one team won’t get to live the Goldenballs dream, they will be in the ‘away’ dressing room! And Whitley have missed out this time. Wroxham have the home ‘England’ dressing room and home colours but Whitley have been here before, this is their third Vase final in 9 years and, to celebrate, they’ve an old school ‘Football Special’ on hand to get from Newcastle to London.

For the Yachtsmen, this is their first trip to the big house and is, undoubtedly the biggest game in their history. Whitley’s two goalscorerss last year, Lee Kerr and Paul Chow are likely to start again. The FA Carlsberg Vase Final kicks off at Wembley Sunday 9th May at 3pm. Dream.

Ticket info for Whitley here and for Wroxham here. As if their fans don’t already know …